At Stough Elementary in Raleigh, students learn in Mandarin

Kindergartner Ava Fletcher has been learning Mandarin for just a few months in her classroom at Stough Elementary School. But already she can write her name in Chinese characters, sing songs such as “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes” and chatter confidently in Mandarin about the books she loves and the friends she plays with.

“I like that I get to learn and that I get to sing,” said Ava, 6, of her class.

Eighteen students are enrolled in the Mandarin immersion program at Stough Elementary on Edwards Mill Road in Raleigh. The program began this year with students from the school’s neighborhood attendance area and will become a magnet next year, so students from across the county can apply to attend.

The magnet application period for Wake County schools runs through Thursday.

At Stough, kindergartners spend almost all of their day learning in Mandarin. The class has one English literacy class each day and also takes specials such as physical education and art in English.

In first grade, they’ll continue on that track, then switch to a 50-50 split of Mandarin and English in higher grades. The students participate in standard state tests but also will be tested on their Mandarin proficiency by a consulting group.

Wake also offers magnet immersion programs at Jeffreys Grove Elementary in Raleigh and Hodge Road Elementary in Knightdale. Students at Jeffreys Grove spend most of their day learning in Spanish, while those at Hodge Road spend half their day speaking English and half their day speaking Spanish.

Stough is the only Wake school to offer Chinese immersion.

Ava’s parents said they are pleased she is getting early exposure to another language, at an age when she can easily absorb the lessons.

“Global diversity is important to us, especially as it relates to language,” said her father, Delon Fletcher.

Fletcher said Stough has provided all the support the family needs to help Ava learn in a different language, including videos, shared online documents and quick answers to any questions they have.

Wake schools began the program at Stough as part of an effort to give more families a chance to participate in an immersion program.

It also was designed to keep neighborhood families at the school. More than half the students who live in Stough’s attendance area had been leaving for other schools in the district.

This fall, the school board voted to make the immersion program a magnet.

Principal Cheryl Stidham hopes to have two Mandarin immersion kindergarten classes next year, as well as add 10 seats to the first-grade program. Students who are not part of the immersion program take Mandarin classes as a special.

The Mandarin teachers at Stough all are native speakers, recruited through VIF International Education in Chapel Hill.

This story was originally published January 30, 2015 at 4:19 PM with the headline "At Stough Elementary in Raleigh, students learn in Mandarin ."